Welcome to my seemingly endless journey.
A trip that will take you to places I might have visited many moons ago.
It´s a tale that came back to me when I meditated on one of my past lives. A life I told you about in my unbelievable true story.
As promised in that story I will now share this story with you.
Chapter 47
As I hand over the coins I make sure some of the pieces fall to the ground. The man bends and half turns to pick up what has fallen.
At the same time, Cabilah walks past him and is immediately surrounded by the three of us, with Retsj as rear guard and Numico and I at her flanks. Without saying a word we walk away from the cabin and the crouching man in the doorway, who is still busy picking up the last ducats from the ground, and barely notices us.
Only when he has found the last coin does he see that we are already far away from his house. Only now does the realization dawn that Cabilah is gone and will not return.
A rage ignites in him and he is ready to get her back, but the memory of the statue of the giant prevents him from doing so.
The eloquent, broadly smiling man haunts his mind like a nightmare. Then he thinks of his niece, the gold pieces slip through his fingers. He doesn't know what to do anymore.
Should he bring her back and risk violence? That would also mean returning the coins, he doesn't know. Would she be worth it all? It's too strange and too soon, it happened, that's for sure. The coins are hard evidence of this.
It happened and he made it happen. He will have to accept this outcome, the other options only offer a chance of a worse outcome than the current one, the hunter decides and closes the door.
This is what must have been going on in Cabilah's uncle's mind, because the man did not follow us. Now a few days later, with the lake with the bear far behind us, we dare to trust that this young woman is safe among us and does not have to worry about this ghost from her recent past.
For days and for the furthest distance there was not a living soul to be seen, at least not a human one. Cabilah had told me about her childhood in the village she came from, but I didn't dare ask about that night that marked the beginning of her unhappy life.
It must be a horror to lose everything and everyone in one night. Because even I, who didn't really feel like I had a connection with the village I left, occasionally catch myself musing about the rock in the river. The beautiful view of the green valley surrounded by red-brown mountains, whose steep walls rose proudly from the earth and protected us from storms and easy discovery.
Everything seems to be correct, the distance, the time, and her description of the event. Everything indicates that this woman was once a resident of the village my visions spoke of. But I don't dare confront her yet, even though I am aware that time is running out as we get closer to the village.
I don't know if she is aware of it, but I can't let it get to this point without telling her.
The horror might be too much when she suddenly finds herself standing again among the remains of what was once her village. That she will walk into the place where she had to leave her mother so many years ago.
She will have to relive it all.
When we reach the top of the hill I see a beautiful mountain on my right. The top of the mountain is smoking, a thin plume of yellow-gray smoke rises from it. The mountain reminds me of the volcano we can see from our village.
Every year we thank her, for she is responsible for the opportunity to live there in relative safety. This volcano rises considerably higher, a white snow collar adorns the top, until the last meters around the crater, where a dark gray band marks the top.
The volcano is not alone. She is surrounded by mountains with high peaks, not as high as herself, but certainly impressive. What is immediately striking is that here too, nature has been able to develop on the nutritious remains of the last eruption. A huge forest surrounding the base of the mountain ends in a green meadow, where a stream represents the deepest point.
My heart skips a beat because there at the edge of the forest, I see a rider completely in black. The distance is too great to distinguish anything else. Before I could warn anyone, he disappeared into the woods.
No one could have seen it as I was the first to reach the top. The chance that he has seen me seems incredibly small to me. I only got to watch him from behind for a few seconds.
I decide not to inform the other about this black rider yet. It may be nothing and I would create unnecessary tension, but I have been warned.
Then I hear a soft howl behind me. Numico and Retsj are both at Cabilah's side, who is on her knees in the grass and starts to cry louder.
She had told us that since arriving at her uncle's cabin, she had never been able to shed a tear for the events of that terrible night.
That dark night when her village was devoured by flames. The night she saw her parents for the last time.
She hadn't had the courage to think about it for the first few months. When she did dare, it was her uncle who harshly told her not to tolerate tears. Life gave and life took, you just had to accept that.
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